A Writer's Take on Global and National Issues with Background Information and Humor As Needed

Big Apple Can’t Handle Big Snow

Posted on December 28, 2010

Snow mixed with politics was the forecast over the weekend in the nation’s largest city. Too much snow or too much politics caused Queens and Brooklyn to be almost neglected by the Department of Sanitation plows.

At JFK, planes sat on the runway for over 8 hours. This caused the local government to interfere with the work of the Federal Government. US Customs officials finished their late night shift before they could process international passengers still held up on planes due to the snow. As a result, more passengers that could not disembark for hours.

There were cries for the head of the Department of Sanitation who had reorganized how snow removal is overseen – no longer in local units but centrally from City Hall.

Bottom line: budget cuts. Sanitation workers got hit hard in the layoff department. This has happened in our little village in Western, NY. Services are the first items to be cut back.

So before each storm, pack in a little more food at the house and food and fresh underwear in your carry-on if at the airport. You may be sitting without services for a long time. Oh, and if you get on a train, make sure there is a bathroom. One very stuck passenger on New Jersey transit who worked for CNN had picked the wrong car!

I heard there was a blizzard out east – it dumped about a foot on us first I think. There is something about snow that has such a huge impact on politics. I remember the man who was mayor of Chicago when I moved to this area lost his job in the following election because he did such a terrible job managing the gigantic blizzard snowfalls we’d gotten shortly before the elections that year. It was pure craziness. I think we got around 6 feet all told in the month of January or something like that.

There will be a lot of people out of office this year because they just don’t have the man-power anymore to do the job in these cities. Some politician was complaining that all of this proves we need more not less government. This is not an area where that argument applies. We need more worker bees not government oversight. People not only are complaining more; they do not have the fine art of complaining down.

The bottom line is that we will have to all live with less of everything. During a snow emergency, you may have to take public transportation (if it exists) to work until plows can get to your road. Ah, well, when gas reaches $5.00 a gallon and food prices have skyrocketed, a lot of people will be taking public transportation or car pooling. We need to do that regardless of what drove us to it. It is the only way we will become less gas dependent because with the Chinese cutting off rare mineral exports, our ability to manufacture batteries for the new green cars and also wind mills will be limited. Having bought farms in Australia and Africa, the Chinese are at the point that, aside from buying their goods, they don’t need us.